WND EXCLUSIVE

Sheriff backs claims of FBI-lawbreaking in Oregon standoff

Documentary-makers release more evidence that raises questions

Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three decades with the Associated Press, as well as several Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose scenic work has been used commercially.

In a stunning development a year after the standoff at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, where two-dozen armed supporters gathered to protest the courts’ extension of sentences for two ranchers, a sheriff has backed claims of FBI misbehavior.

The declaration came from Deschutes County Sheriff Shane Nelson just as FBI agent W. Joseph Astarita was pleading not guilty to three counts of making false statements and two counts of obstruction of justice in federal court in Portland, Oregon.

The FBI agent was accused of firing at the protesters, then picking up shell casings to conceal that fact and lying to investigators.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Oregon said Astarita falsely stated he had not fired his weapon during the attempted arrest of protester LaVoy Finicum, who was shot dead by another officer during the incident, “when he knew he had in fact fired his weapon.”

“Astarita also knowingly engaged in misleading conduct toward Oregon State Police officers by failing to disclose that he had fired two rounds during the attempted arrest,” the statement said.

Nelson said, as the Washington Times reported, that the actions by “multiple members of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team” had “damaged the integrity of the entire law enforcement profession, which makes me both disappointed and angry.”

Nelson said he told Justice Department and FBI officials, including now-acting Director Andrew McCabe, over a year ago about “possible criminal conduct” by some involved FBI Hostage Rescue Team agents.

And while the case against Astarita is in court, new evidence also is arising from the makers of an acclaimed documentary about the incident.

WND reported earlier on the armed standoff that has been variously described by opponents as “militia terrorism” and by defenders as rebellion against government tyranny.

The 41-day standoff ended in mass arrests after law enforcement fatally shot one of the occupiers.

The “American Standoff” story starts with Dwight and Steven Hammond, Oregon ranchers who were controversially convicted and sentenced for setting a controlled land-management fire on their property that went out of control onto federal land. But after they served their sentences and were released, a judge – at a federal prosecutor’s insistence – ordered them back into court, where they were sentenced to further time in prison under an anti-terrorism law, even though there was no evidence presented that the ranchers had planned or engaged in terrorism in any way.

Sympathetic ranchers and others – encouraged by the federal government’s stand-down from a previous armed confrontation in Nevada two years earlier on the land of rancher Cliven Bundy – protested the new injustice and ended up staging an armed occupation of the refuge.

They succeeded in keeping federal officers at bay until they were finally taken into custody when police staged a highly dangerous highway stop of vehicles carrying the protesters and shot two men.

Ryan Bundy, one of Cliven Bundy’s sons, was injured, while LaVoy Finicum was killed.

“I think Josh Turnbow did a terrific job in ‘American Standoff,'” said Kupelian, “not just in fairly and sensitively presenting all sides of a complex and troubling situation, but in telling a riveting, deeply thought-provoking true story about today’s America.”

Kupelian said the documentary “captures the classic modus operandi of an oppressive government: Perpetrate injustice, provoking widespread public outrage, which always includes a small number of people who seriously overreact and, however well-meaning, do something illegal or irresponsible – and then portray them as the real problem, or in this case as ‘criminals’ and ‘terrorists.'”

He said the main provocation in the story was “convicting two Oregon cattle ranchers, a father and son team whose controlled burn on their own property had gotten out of control and migrated onto federal land, with arson under an anti-terrorism statute that mandates a minimum five-year prison sentence.”

“Even the presiding judge said such a severe and unjust sentence would ‘shock the conscience.’ Well, it did shock the conscience of a lot of other ranchers – and the Malheur standoff was the result,” he said.

Turnbow said he would like to find out what really happened and consider what the outcome should have been, especially with regard to the still-imprisoned ranchers serving a five-year “terrorism” sentence.

“We should be talking about it,” Turnbow says.

The larger issue at hand – federal control over land in the American West – continues to loom large.

The federal government is the largest landowner in the Rocky Mountain and Western states, owning contiguous parcels of millions of acres.

Conflicts between ranchers, who in some instances have owned and worked their land for generations, and a federal government seemingly always hungry for more, are common.

President Trump’s recent executive order to review the possibility of shrinking the boundaries of federal monuments could help defuse the longstanding tensions between America’s ranchers and the government.